A case of you reap what you sow?

[godzuki]

Theres a current popular topic on the UKFUR forums right now about the levels of trouble and rudeness and general animosity/crap spammage that the forums seem to breed. A theory Ive always had is that any online community usually seems to take its que from its leaders as to how to act. Ive certainly seen it on places like furcadia, where the

Comments

[dingotush]

I do agree with this in part, though the UK fur forums have gone past the point of no return.

Forums (in general) take their tone from the leaders, true, but that's not necessarily the mods and admins. It's the people who lead by example, posting thoughtful, well written, open ended stuff that keeps the standard high, and keeps things on topic and interesting. Importantly, these good posts let people get to know each other, and build trust and friendship. Quality, rather than quantity, of posts is key.

Forums go wrong when the level of noise (poorly written, off-topic, insulting, trolling) rises. This happens slowly, but it drives away the better posters quickly (they have less time to wade through the volume of trash), accelerating the change. As soon as you reach the "mostly noise" stage, the moderators are screwed; they're trying to draw a distinction between crap and crappier posts. It will seem arbitrary, and so fail.

UKfur has already reached this point. It was fated from the beginning because:

* the forum was set up for volume of posting - the huge forum games and off topic areas don't incourage quality.
* the admins/mods failed to act _immediately_ when the responsible people started leaving.
* the admins/owners wanted to run the UK's biggest fur forum, rather than facilitate discussion by UK furs.
* fundamentally, web-based forums with their smilies, images, eye-candy, immediacy, and focus on style over content encourage trivial posting, and discourage thoughtfulness.
* the admins/owners, at the highest level, aren't interested in a discussion.
* the fact that the owners/admins/mods don't abide by their own ToS is a big indicator.

I've never seen one recover from this state. The users just splinter on to new sites (obviously both ConFuzzled and RBW have their own forums now). Then again I've never seen admins with the balls to have the site go dark, delete everything, and bring it back cleanly.

[godzuki]

You make some good points for discussion, and I agree with some, but I think the people in charge genuinely want a good forum even if sometimes their methods arent achieving it...

I agree, splinter sites are forming but I dont see these as taking over from what is the main place new furs meet each other...tho I do see how most long term users there are those who are willing to put up with it, warts and all, not a representation of the whole fandom...